One Last Kiss: Ending
by Lightish Red
Summary: Picking up where Snowflake's One Last Kiss ended, this is the concluding chapter.


**One Last Kiss: Ending**

_I know that I was disappointed to see that Snowflake chose not to finish_ One Last Kiss_, so this is my ending to it. I DO NOT CLAIM THIS STORYLINE AS MINE! I'm just finishing it off. Read the original under my favorite stories. _

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Keladry of Mindelan opened her eyes, the bright white light flooding her sight and causing her to squint. She tried to move a hand to cover her face, but it didn't even twitch. All her limbs felt weighted with lead, like the weapons she had used as a page. The memory of her training days recalled the pictures of her last frightening instants in desperate battle.

_Am I dead?_ she wondered. _I thought it would be different than this._ She could not move and she certainly didn't feel any pain, not from the wounds she remembered receiving. She just felt empty. A noise in her ear startled her. Kel slowly forced her head to turn sideways, willing it to face this unknown intrusion. She saw a door open and a familiar face step in.

The healer Liyana walked into the room carrying a stack of freshly laundered and folded linen. When she saw the Lady Knight's open eyes, she sucked in a little breath. Kel's eyes followed the woman as she set the white cloths in the chest of drawers at the foot of the bed. Liyana turned again to face the young woman.

"Nice to see you're back with us, Lady Knight." When Kel could only blink in response, the healer continued, "You still have the effects of the sleeping medicines Sir Nealean gave you. You should be able to speak shortly, and then the pain will come. You came in with a nasty gash on your arm." Here the woman paused, assessing if the knight actually understood. Clearing her throat, she finished quietly, "I suppose I don't need to tell you that the baby's gone."

Kel closed her eyes slowly, absorbing all the information. She was still at the fort if Liyana was there and most certainly not dead, at least not yet. But something, someone was dead. The healer's voice intruded on her thoughts. "… I'll get Sir Neal."

The paralyzed knight's head jerked. _No! Not Neal, not now,_ she screamed in her mind. But her throat could not form the words, and the woman left to find Neal, Kel's best friend. _If I can even call him friend anymore_—Kel knew he would hate her now that he knew her dirty little secret. Sure, Neal would heal her, but just touching her would disgust him.

Kel stared at the whitewashed ceiling, dreading the look on his face when he saw her. The wait was not long, however, and Neal strode in the doorway, hand already glowing with emerald fire. His face did not show the repulsion and hatred she had expected, rather her old friend only looked tired and surprisingly enough, sad. "That was a foolish thing to do, Keladry," he murmured quietly, letting his magic seep into her with a gentle touch to her bandaged arm.

Kel mentally winced at the use of her full name. _Neal must be angry_, she thought as she watched his gloomy emerald eyes.

"I thought you should know that we kept the true nature of your 'illness' hidden. Everyone thinks that you suffered multiple axe wounds. Among the men, only myself, my lord Raoul, and my dear cousin Dom know the truth, although I suspect a certain Sergeant was clued in a long time ago." He had finished the healing treatment and taken a seat on the edge of the bed to talk to her. Neal's emerald eyes met her directly. "He's not the…" he trailed off in askance.

Kel croaked out "No!" quickly, surprised that her voice had obeyed. Neal reached for a glass of water on the bedside table and gently lifted her head to tilt the cooling liquid down her throat. The woman sputtered a little but drank thirstily to make up for time spent asleep. "How long?" she said hoarsely when he pulled the cup from her lips.

"Only three days," Neal said with a sigh. He looked down at the weak girl lying there and asked, "Kel, why couldn't you tell me? After all we've been through…" He stopped, chocking on his own emotion.

The Lady Knight had the urge to comfort the man; she had still managed to hurt him, even though she had only been trying to protect him from the truth. "I'm sorry, Neal," she whispered.

"No, I'm sorry," he told her abruptly. "I'm a healer and I didn't even see what was happening right in front of me." He shook his head and stood. "You need all the rest you can get. When that drug wears off you'll really feel sorry." Kel saw him reach down to squeeze her hand, but she couldn't feel the reassuring touch.

He turned away, and she had to call out to his back, "I will be all right, then? I can go back to fighting like I used to?"

Neal looked back over his shoulder and nodded, "Your body will heal, but the rest is up to you, Kel." Frozen by his own words, he could only look down at the floor.

She had to give him something for all he had done for her, the last eight years just as much as the last few days. It could not have been easy for him to learn her secret in such a manner. "Neal," she said firmly, "it was Cleon."

The healer met her eyes briefly. Before he left, he told her, "I'll be in to check on you in an hour when the medicine wears off. You'll need something more then." When he was gone, Kel realized that she was now alone, totally and fully alone.

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Despite the feeling, Kel was not alone; Dom had been lingering in front of the infirmary for hours. As soon as he saw Neal exit, he had a word with the healer and then stepped into the woman's room and shut the door behind him. "How are you, Kel?" he asked softly. She didn't respond, staring straight up at the ceiling. "My cousin says you are doing well considering the circumstances."

Kel exhaled sharply. "I don't want to be 'well,'" she said a little spitefully.

The soldier looked at her with a mix of pity and uncertainty, hesitating a moment before dragging a ladder back chair to her bedside. "Don't talk like that, Kel. You couldn't have known—"

She turned her head sideways to look at him for the first time. "Don't do that, Dom—don't even say it. I knew exactly what I was doing and what I risked. You did too, but I wouldn't listen to your warnings either. I knew that if I fought this would happen, and at any time I could have gone to my lord Raoul and told him that I wasn't fit to fight, but I didn't."

"Kel," he began again.

She cut him short. "I lost this baby, Dom. I did. Me. No one else can take the blame."

The man shook his head slowly. "That bastard Kennan deserves something."

Kel glanced at him sharply. "You want to beat something? Beat on me. I'm the idiot here. I shouldn't have survived out there, Dom. I was supposed to die out there with my baby, that was my fate!"

"Kel!" the soldier practically shouted. He left his chair to lean over the bed, face inches from hers their eyes locked. "Do not talk like that. You are still here with me, with all of us."

"Don't you understand?" she sobbed, turning her face away. "I killed it, Dom. I killed an innocent child because I was afraid of hurting my reputation. It's dead because of my pride."

He seized her hand. "That's your personal hell, Kel, and I can't help you with that. But I can tell you that right now you are alive because Merric and Neal fought to bring you back alive. Why? Because you are a good knight, a good fighter. Because you care enough to help save people. Because we love you, Kel. I love you."

She sniffed hard, tears streaming down her cheeks. "It's gone, Dom. I hated it, but that doesn't mean I didn't love it in my own way."

Dom straightened for a moment, watching her shaking with silent sobs. He slid easily into bed next to her, careful not to jostle her bad arm or broken body. He leaned over her, wiping tears from her glistening cheeks and smoothing her hair back. "You'll have other chances, Kel. You can fight for now and have another baby someday, or lots of them, when you're ready this time," he told her.

She quieted slowly, letting his warm presence steady her raw nerves. Kel fell asleep with her head against his chest.

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Raoul rode up through the gates, returning from the Scanran skirmishes with his men. There were a million things he had to attend to… "Where's Sergeant Domitan?" he bellowed to Fulcher on the walls.

The answer, however, came from Nealean of Queenscove. The knight met Raoul as the latter dismounted. "Kel's awake, and Dom's with her now."

"How is she?" her former knight master asked with fatherly concern.

Neal's tired eyes looked up at the older night, "She'll heal."

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Raoul, stripped of his armor but still in his sweat soaked tunic, entered the room quietly, ducking a little to fit through the doorframe. His eyes widened a little to see that Kel was tucked in the arms of Dom and that both sound asleep, and he hid his small smile by rubbing his nose. "Lady Knight," he said politely.

The pair's eyes fluttered open, and Dom sat up with a start when he realized who had come to visit. "My Lord," Keladry replied calmly. She had ceased to care what anyone thought of her and her bedfellows.

"At ease, Sergeant. This is a purely personal visit," Raoul said with his usual good humor. His tone was slightly tenderer, however, when he addressed the young woman. "How are you holding up?"

Kel answered truthfully. "I don't know, sir." She pressed her lips together in a tight line and blinked up wearily.

Raoul swallowed hard and looked down at his former squire. She had wanted to keep her secrets, and he was not about to pry. "I think the less I know, the better," he said with a long glance to Dom.

Even though Kel no longer cared about her reputation, she felt the need to defend Dom. "It wasn't him, sir, and without him I don't think that I would still be here." The soldier and the lady knight met gazes and a silent message passed between them.

Raoul recognized this and nodded his acknowledgement. "Heal, Kel, and we'll talk about your next assignment later." He let himself out and closed the door gently behind him. Seeing the look that had passed between the pair, the knight knew that the Protector of the Small would heal just fine.


End file.
